


haunted houses might not be overrated after all

by dat_heichou



Series: jeanmarcoweek2016 [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, haunted house au, jeanmarcoweek2016, marco's not a big horror fan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 07:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8319496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dat_heichou/pseuds/dat_heichou
Summary: As a young adult, Marco's finally accepted that horror is just not his thing.  But he still somehow agrees to go visit a haunted house with his roommates.  
Day 2 of Jeanmarcoweek2016: Trick/Treat





	

For the most part, Marco really enjoys sharing an apartment with Sasha and Connie.  Sure they can be loud and rambunctious sometimes, but they also help him have fun and keep him from being too serious.

The biggest problem about their living situation is Halloween.  Connie and Sasha are pure believers in the idea that Halloween is a month-long holiday that starts on October first.  Marco doesn’t mind the pumpkins that gradually fill up the apartment, heck he likes when they all sit down at the table to carve them together and the warmth that grows in the kitchen when they bake them into pies.  He doesn’t mind the hand cut paper decorations that Sasha lines the windows and front door with.

Anything spookier than paper bats and yarn spiderwebs, though, and Marco has a problem.

He’s long accepted that horror and gore just aren’t his thing.  He’s never liked being scared and he’s eventually realized that he’s okay with that.  When Sasha and Connie make popcorn to watch the newest episode of American Horror Story, he grabs a handful from their bowl before quickly hiding away in his room, using upbeat pop music to drown out any lingering sounds that sneak under his door.

He gave horror-comedy a shot, but he quickly realized that wasn’t for him either.  He cried the first time he saw Shawn of the Dead as a sixteen year-old and even at 21 he still couldn’t finish the first episode of Scream Queens without gagging.  Though, he reasons, horror-comedy is only funny if you know enough about the horror genre to get the joke, so he’s not really missing out on anything in the first place.

Over the year and a half of living together, Connie and Sasha have gradually learned about his holiday boundaries.  After that memorable instance when the landlord called the cops in 2015 because Marco screamed a little too loud, Connie quickly learned that putting life-sized skeletons inside the coats in the hall closet is just crossing the line.

Despite Marco’s dislike of the scary and creepy, his roommates always try to keep him included, at least asking if he wants to join on the minute chance he’ll change his mind.  He never does, not since his last attempted traipse into horror-comedy.

This time though, things are a little different.

Marco is sitting at the kitchen table, outlining a new article he’s freelancing, when his two enthusiastic roommates burst through the door, almost falling in their haste to step out of their shoes.

“Marco, Marco!!”  Sasha calls,  “Guess what??”

“The local theater’s doing an interactive showing of Rocky Horror this weekend?”  The movie is quirky and strange, but not terrifying, so it's something Marco’s open to seeing with them.  Heck, he’ll even dress up for it.

“Well that too!  But no, we saw our friend today, you know, that guy we told you about from high school?”

“The one who you said moved back to Trost after college?”  Marco couldn’t help but be intrigued.  He’d met Sasha and Connie at Trost U, but had heard many stories of their old friend’s antics, though he’d yet to meet him yet.

“Yeah!!  Jeanbo got a job working at a haunted house and he gave us three free tickets!!  Isn’t that cool??”

“Uh huh,” Marco murmurs as he scrolls through his notes.  “Wait, three tickets?”

“Yeah,” Sasha says as she sits at the table beside him, fighting with Marco’s block of sticky notes.  “He said we could bring our housemate, but if you don’t want to go, we can give the ticket to someone else.”

“Oh,” Marco answers, surprised that a practical stranger would go out of their way to let him be included.

“I mean, we’d love if you wanted to come with us.  Especially because you’ve been so busy lately,”  Connie remarks, frowning as he adds, “Actually you’re always working.  If you’re not here then you’re at the store and if you’re here you’re usually writing for someone.”

Marco feels a pang of guilt settle in his chest.  Connie’s right of course.  He really has been working a lot lately.

“If you wanna give it a shot, we can go during the day so it's not as scary!!  And we can all hold hands and protect you!!”  Sasha insists, bouncing out of her seat.

Maybe he  _ has  _ been working too much and it's starting to affect his brain, but Marco finds himself curious.  “Sure,” he smiles before his friends crush him in twin hugs, promising that they'll all have fun together on their next day off.

* * *

_ We were wrong, they were wrong,  _ I  _ was wrong,  _ Marco cries.  The windows are tinted with black paper so that even though it’s still early afternoon, the old house is dark and shadowy.  Everything seems more menacing in the dim light, even the outdated curtains and the fake spiderwebs that deep down Marco knows are the same as the stuff lining their own apartment’s walls.

As soon as they handed over their tickets and entered the place, the creepy atmosphere had already done a number on Marco.  So he couldn’t help it when the approach of the first scarer, a thin figure wearing a hockey mask and carrying a humming chain saw that splattered blood all over their shredded white t-shirt, sent Marco bolting.  His dash was so sudden that he harshly ripped his hands away from the reassuring hold of his roommates, leaving them calling out to him as he darted down the next dark hall.

Now,  Marco finds himself lost and alone somewhere within the sinister house, designed purely to scare the pants off of him.  Logically he knows that his best course of action would be to find someone,  _ anyone  _ and ask them to escort him to the exit to wait for his friends.  Part of the employee’s job is to ensure customer safety, after all.  But even still, Marco instinctually darts away whenever he catches a glimpse of one of the many nightmare figures within the house, drenched and fake blood and crying out in horrific voices.

Marco’s currently curled up in a ball in a corner behind an old-fashioned overstuffed armchair, trying to calm himself so he can actually go ask for help.  He internally kicks himself because there’s no way his friends will ever be able to find him here, so he seriously needs to get his act together.  He takes a few breaths to steady himself when the floorboards near the door creak.

Marco’s breath catches in his throat and he cautiously peeks around the chair’s armrest.  Of course it's none other than the person with the hockey mask, the guy who scared him enough to get him to run off in the first place.  

It’s too dark in his corner for the newcomer to see him, so the actor simply looks around the room and sighs before pulling his mask off.  Marco ducks back behind the chair as the footsteps inch closer and suddenly the chair lets out a loud creak of complaint as the actor flops into it with a sigh.  There’s a soft click as the scarer unlocks his phone, brightening up their corner of the room.

_ It’s now or never, I guess, _ Marco sighs as he edges away from his hiding spot.  “Um, hi,” he says.

“Holy fucgking shit!” the actor exclaims, his phone clattering to the floor as he jumps out of his seat.  

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Marco exclaims, hurrying to quickly slide out from behind the chair.  “I didn’t mean to scare you.”  He can’t help but sigh in relief to see that the other man has taken his mask off, and therefore is slightly less intimidating. 

“Well what did you mean to do, hiding behind there?” the guy grumbles, retrieving his phone from the hardwood.  Once in his hand, the screen creates just enough light for them to get a decent view of each other. “Oh shit,” the scarer whispers in recognition.

“H-hi,” Marco smiles, feeling more and more awkward the longer the whole haunted-house experience drags on.  “I, um, was wondering if you could help me find the exit?  I’m not big on the whole, uh, horror thing, and I was hoping to find my friends?”

“I’m sorry,” the actor blurts, ducking his head and fumbling with his mask.  “I didn’t mean to scare you that bad. It’s the least I can do to take you back.”

Even though the actor is a stranger drenched with gross-looking red dye, Marco finds his offer comforting.  Especially as he confidently leads the way back through the haunted house, not a flinch in his posture as he walks past each ghostly and gorey decoration.  Even with his guidance, the first sight of a ghostly figure with an oozing laceration on their neck causes Marco to scramble a few steps back, ready to dart away.  The only thing keeping him from getting lost  _ again  _ is his guide reaching a reassuring hand out to grasp onto his shoulder.

“Hey Eren, I think the edges of your appliance are peeling again,” he says while using his spare arm to gesture at his own neck.

“Again?  Ah shit,” the ghoul remarks patting down at the oozy scar.  With this added attention, Marco can make out a few places where the scar seems raised above his skin, peeling away.

The actor tugs at Marco to get him moving again, “It’s easier to not be scared if you think about the people behind the makeup.”  With each approach, he  simply addresses each of the actors and actresses, either pointing out their makeup or props, or simply asking them what time it is and when the house closes for the day.  Each conversation calms Marco a little more, and by the time they come across a girl rattling chains at them, he only flinches.  

Somewhere along the way, the man’s hand has wandered down to hold his, and he squeezes reassuringly every time Marco startles.  This physical contact makes Marco’s heart pound in a much more exhilarating way than the haunted house ever did.

When they make it to the front exit, Marco’s almost a little disappointed.  The man’s little commentary as he led him through the house was honestly sorta  _ fun  _ and a part of him doesn’t want it to end yet.  But he can’t linger though, not when Connie and Sasha are waiting for him and they quickly engulf him in a tight hug.

“Marcooo, I’m so sorry!!!  You got lost and we were so worried and it's all our fault for bringing you here!!!” 

“Guys, it’s okay,” Marco smiles, pulling back to get a better view of their relieved faces.  “I’m okay.  And I decided to come with you, so it's not your fault.”  They squeeze him tighter and Sasha sniffles into his chest.

Connie leans back to wrap an arm around Marco’s savior.  “Thanks for finding Marco for us, Jean.”

“Oh it's no problem,” he smiles, “sounds like it's mostly my fault anyway. I gave you the tickets  _ and  _  I scared him the minute you guys walked in the building so… it's my bad.”

Marco whips around to stare at him.  In the afternoon sun, he can finally see his face clearly.  The disheveled blond hair, the angular jawline, the bright amber eyes.  The… gallons upon gallons of fake blood staining both his torn clothes and his skin an angry red.   _ This  _ is Jeanbo, the friend that dared Connie to shave off his eyebrows in the ninth grade, the friend that stuffed a bra with rolled up socks to match Sasha on twin day their senior year.

Somehow, Marco’s heart swells at the realization.  When he smiles, he’s flustered to see Jean smile back.  It’s a nice expression, miraculously not marred in the least by the red splatters of fake blood smeared on his cheek and jawline.

“Hey Jeanbo, we were thinking of going to see the Rocky Horror Show at the theater tomorrow, you want to come with?”  Connie asks.

Jean peeks over at Marco, who peeks at him sheepishly before looking down at his hand, the one Jean had been holding earlier.  It’s stained a light pink, the residue of the fake blood lingering upon his skin the same way Jean’s bright laugh lingers in his thoughts.  

“I’d love to.”


End file.
